nine2five 2,17 Hell's Fury
by Marc Vun Kannon
Summary: Chuck and Sarah are standing in the crosshairs of a weapon that kills with 100% accuracy. This is the last episode of this season.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N ** Part two of the finale. I'm changing the functionality of the Norseman somewhat. In canon it was simply a killing box that would allow anyone to kill anything anywhere, so that someone as weak as Vivian could kill someone as strong as Sarah. I'm trying to give it a bit more explanation, with a few more limitations, to explain how Sarah could survive where everyone else died.

* * *

"_Same mountains, different country."_

"_An unfortunate accident."_

"_Good plan, mom." _

"_A weapon of last resort."_

* * *

A few days later…

"Morgan, buddy, can you take a picture for us?"

"Sure thing, Chuck." The manager put down his collection of menus and took the phone, envious as usual that his best friend had the best toys. He centered the screen on General Beckman's red hair, as everyone else in her party gathered around her. "What's the occasion?"

Chuck waited until he'd taken the standard three photos of the same pose before answering. He wasn't sure exactly what to say. They'd never met Julian Barker, but they'd kept in touch with Cole and shared his anxiety over his nephew. Now that said nephew was out of hospital and freshly commended for his actions aboard the sinking Contessa, friends on both sides of The Pond were celebrating. "Somebody lived," said Chuck finally, reclaiming his phone.

"That's great," said Morgan, knowing he'd never hear more than that, but he took what he could get, just like all his friends. "I hope all you guys can make it to Alex' graduation party."

"Uh…" said Casey, straightening. Alex Coburn officially died in 1989. No one had told his ex-fiancee Kathleen about his continued existence under another name.

"Don't worry, big guy," said Morgan, aware of that little wrinkle. "We're having two, spies and straights. No press at the spy one."

Casey nodded. He didn't get many chances to see his daughter openly anymore. She was graduating with three commendations and a citation of merit, two of which she'd earned before she even started the course, and the FBI knew a good promotional opportunity when it saw one. Alex was rapidly becoming the face of the agency for a new generation, and the press hovered. "Absolutely."

* * *

A few days after that…

The grounds were still, the house unoccupied. A window slid up easily, the alarms disabled. A figure clad all in black slipped through the space and walked calmly across the floor, confident that he was alone. He walked past chests, ignored the electronics, checked no drawers.

In the main bedroom he flipped the covers down, and checked the pillows with a light. With a pair of tweezers he lifted a strand of hair from the pillow and coiled it around a swab, stowing the whole thing into a sealed plastic bag before going on his way.

* * *

"How does it work?" asked Vivian. Days of seclusion, of frantic preparation. In spite of the blast, she had no illusions that all of her enemies were destroyed, or indeed, that any of them had been. Her father's notes always mentioned an Agent X, the man who would destroy him. She assumed he meant that metaphorically. There had to be one someday, and for him it been Agent Charles. For her, who could say, but with the Norseman in hand she could make her killer pay a high price before the end.

"I'm afraid the physics is beyond me," said the weaponeer hesitantly. "From the look of it, these two components are virtually identical, but where the tracker merely locates a target, the killing component emits a signal that, um, clogs the inner workings of the victim's cells so that they can no longer function."

"What are the outward signs?" asked Riley, always concerned with evidence, and how to conceal it.

"I haven't tested it yet, sir," said the technician.

"No time like the present."

"Yes, sir." The tech lifted the Norseman from the bracket. "If you'll just hold this…" He went to a rack and brought over a cage of ordinary mice. Reaching into the cage he selected one and pulled off a few hairs. On the side of the tracker he pressed a button and a panel popped out. He put the hairs on the panel and pushed it back in. "All set."

Riley noted the gun-like shape. "Do I have to aim it?"

The technician nodded. "The signal emits as a cone, so distance and directionality are factors. From far enough away, or poorly aimed, the victim would take longer to die, or possibly escape the cone entirely."

Riley pointed the Norseman at the cage and pulled the trigger. The technician clapped his hands over his ears, bled from the nose, and fell over dead. So did one of the mice, but without all the hullabaloo.

"Well," said Riley, looking at the man's corpse. "I'd say that was a successful test." He handed the Norseman to Vivian. "My lady, your kingdom awaits." From his pocket he pulled out his recorder. "Note to self, re Norseman. Always wear rubber gloves."

* * *

A figure clad in black dangled in a chute of stone, a ventilation shaft cut into the rock that led into the weapons lab. He heard everything, except for whatever made the dead guy shout "What's that noise?" right before he became a dead guy.

Too late. He considered dropping a grenade down there, and taking whatever pieces remained, but his orders were explicit. The whole weapon, nothing less.

Still, there was actionable intelligence to be had. When they left the room he dropped down into the lab, almost on top of the dead guy. He reached into the cage and grabbed the mouse, then hit the retractor on his cable.

* * *

Yet more days later…

"It's like watching a Pink Panther movie," said Chuck out loud.

"Is that your professional analysis, Mr. Bartowski?" asked General Beckman calmly.

Chuck looked up, at his team gathered on the monitor. Casey scowling as usual, but the ladies all seemed to be amused to some (very slight, in the General's case) degree. "I…could use fancier words if you'd like, General…"

"I would like to get on a conference call with my peers in the intelligence community with something more to go on than Jacques Clouseau, yes."

Chuck cleared his throat. "It's a deliberately provoked feeding frenzy, General. She doesn't even need to use the Norseman, just let the news of its existence leak out into the weapons-dealer community and let them tear each other to bits over it. The ones that don't get killed by their fellow arms dealers get mowed down by her mercenaries before they can get close. Soon she'll be the only game in town."

"She said she'd use it to claim her kingdom, she just didn't say how," commented Casey.

"Try 'empire', Colonel, and you'll have some idea of why my colleagues are getting involved," said Beckman. "We may have to accept black markets as a fact of life, but we cannot allow one person to monopolize the business, or take over any more of it than she already has. We have to capture the Norseman, so that we can demonstrate to the world that it has been destroyed."

"You can't be coming to us to do that, General," said Sarah. An observation, not a directive. "She knows all of our faces."

"Correct, Sarah," said the General. "This team will support, but another team will take point when action is called for."

"Do we know what action that will be?"

"No, but we have a general idea. Once the number of players drops below threshold, Vivian will have to change her tactics. We must be ready when she does."

"Use it or lose it."

"Exactly, Colonel."

* * *

Another quiet day in the lab…

"Hey Chuck," said Manoosh. "How's life back in the cave?"

Chuck took a second to reply. "After you've destroyed the Death Star, it's hard to go back to fixing moisture vaporators, you know?" Even with Darth Vivian out there, gunning for him.

"Actually I do, Chuck," said Manoosh, his voice oddly flat.

If Chuck had had something to bonk his head on, he'd have bonked his head on it. "Sorry, Manoosh, didn't mean to bring up bad memories."

Bad memories. _Try 'Dark Side of the Force', _not a memory at all_._ The voice of power, whispering. He turned his back on it again, as he always did. The Dark Side may have had cookies, but it would never have Ellie, or Orion, or the rest of his true friends. "No worries. How's the project coming?"

Chuck was grateful for the change of subject. "Just need an audience."

"I think we can make that happen."

* * *

Another afternoon meeting, not so quiet...

"Good afternoon, team. We've just received…Hannah? What are you doing here? I thought you had a few days left on your honeymoon."

Hannah made a face. "I made the mistake of checking my emails, General. I saw what was up and…we knew my place was here."

Sarah grinned.

General Beckman sat up straight. "Analyst, your country thanks you, and your husband, for your service."

Hannah gaped a second, and looked down, suddenly shy. "Uh, thank you, General."

Embarrassing her wasn't the General's intention, so she redirected the attention of the group back to the mission at hand. "Interpol has recently detained Graciela La Barba, wife of the Italian arms dealer, Ettore La Barba, as a suspect in his recent murder."

Hannah put up two photos of the not-so-happy ex-couple.

"He looks like Morgan," said Chuck.

Casey grunted in a way that normally meant he'd been stabbed.

Beckman ignored him. "Sra. La Barba claims that she was not fleeing the country, but was instead simply going to Moscow to attend the very private auction of a new weapon, as part of her husband's, now _her_, business."

No one needed her to spell out the implications. Casey took it one step further. "General, you can't be thinking–?"

"Can you think of anyone better suited, Colonel?"

"Better suited than who, General?" asked Chuck, looking from one to the other like a little fat kid hoping to get picked for a team.

"Greta," said Casey, almost spitting, except there were no sibilants in the name.

"Which one?" said Carina, confused. Not the season for it.

"Not _a_ Greta, Miller," said Casey. "_The_ Greta. The only student never to pass Montgomery's little charm school. She's an assassin, and she likes it, but it's all she likes. I'd say she's a dead ringer for the little woman up there, but that joke's too much like the truth."

Beckman added, "She'll be the perfect addition to Vivian's soiree. If things go well, she'll simply outbid everyone for the Norseman, and leave without bloodshed. If not…"

"If not, she'll get to do what she likes doing a lot more than peacefully outbidding other people," said Casey.

"Which is why your team will be on hand to keep her under control, Colonel." Beckman dismissed her team with a more-heartfelt-than-usual "Good Luck."

Casey waited until the screen went black. "This is a horrible idea."

* * *

"Can I just go on record as saying I hate this plan?" said Agent Bartowski (male).

Greta frowned. "It's your plan, isn't it?"

"Yeah it is, but it's not the best."

Greta looked mildly curious, a better expression than the frown and especially the smile. "What's the best?"

"Your enemies all have convenient heart attacks while you're home watching Star Wars on the newly re-re-re-re-re-remastered Blu-Ray edition."

"Where's the fun in that?"

Chuck looked at the demure young woman, dressed in her executive finest. It looked form-fitting, not that he wanted to think about the form with Sarah right there. "Are you ready?"

"My ensemble is complete."

"I meant your weapons," said Chuck.

"I was talking about my weapons."

"Remember the mission objective," said Sarah as Chuck seemed to have trouble thinking of anything else to say. "Obtain the device. Everything else is secondary to that."

Greta smiled. "Thank you."

* * *

Vivian's gaze swept the room as she entered majestically, music from Holst's 'The Planets' (Mars, to be precise) playing in her head to get her into the right frame of mind. Naturally her sweep stopped on the one female face in the room, the one she knew least about. "Graciela, is it?"

Greta stared back evenly, her face a mask. "_Si_."

"So sorry for your loss."

Greta snapped open her switchblade, and started cleaning under her nails. "I'm not. I got rid of an annoying thing. _E' stato divertente_." Then she added, "But only for me."

Vivian smiled. "How pleasant to be able to combine business with pleasure." She moved on to her position, and launched into her spiel. The gentleman around her sat back, playing it cool, while Graciela leaned forward, eager to catch every word of the killing efficiency of this new weapon, until Vivian got to the part about DNA targeting. Then she sat back in her own chair, muttering "A coward's weapon" under her breath.

Then came the live demonstration.

* * *

Casey watched as everyone around the room screamed, covered their ears, and fell, including Greta. "Stay down, I've got the room covered."

* * *

The secret of playing dead is not holding your breath, but rather breathing shallowly and often, so the movement of the ribs is undetectable. Greta lay there, cataloging the reasons why she needed to kill everyone in the room who wasn't already dead.

The woman, for using a coward's weapon.

The man, for being an idiot. The simplest way to flush out a phony, is just to go around the room popping the corpses in the head until you get to–Interesting. Not just her.

_Braggart MI-6 pretty boy, I'm going to enjoy–_whoops, too late.

* * *

The sound of the snaps closing on the case prompted Greta into action. She rolled silently to her feet, pulling out (some of) her weapons while shielded by the table. She aimed her guns at their feet and then stood, catching her victims, that is, enemies off guard.

Not off guard enough. Riley snatched up the case and held it in front of him like a shield. "You want this, don't you?" With Vivian behind him, they backed away to freedom.

The door opened, and Carmichael walked in, drawn by the sound of gunfire.

"Agent Bartowski," said Greta, not fooled for a second by the cheesy mustache disguise, "You're just in time." Although five minutes from now would have made her happier. She could have a lot of fun in five minutes. "Grab his gun."

* * *

"Chuck?" asked Casey, staring through his scope. "What do you think you're doing? You're supposed to be in the van."

"I am in the van, guys," said Chuck. "Where do you think I am?"

"Greta!" shouted Casey, "He's a ringer!"

* * *

Carmichael took the gun from Riley's belt, turned, and pointed it at Greta. She ducked behind the table as he fired.

* * *

Casey switched targets, but the positioning was bad. His line on the body-double was partially blocked by Riley, and after him, the Norseman case. Fortunately this guy was tall. Casey aimed for the head.

* * *

Glass shattered and a man cursed in sudden pain. Greta heard Vivian yell, "Riley, take the gun!" and she rose again to take advantage of the lapse.

Riley tossed the case at Vivian and lifted Carmichael's arm. Casey's bullet had gone wild from the reinforced glass and struck him in the shoulder, but there was nothing wrong with his trigger finger. Greta ducked again as the fake Agent Bartowski kept firing even as Riley dragged him backward through the door. She got a couple of shots off at their feet, and was rewarded by a bellow of pain, but the door closed on it.

She got up and ran from the room, but the elevator doors were already closing. "They're in the elevator!"

"Get out of there, Greta," said Casey. "You can't do anything more up there."

Four men in white haz-mat suits emerged from a stairwell, carrying large tubs and bottles of acid.

Greta put her gun away. Too quick. "In a minute," she said with a smile.

* * *

"They're heading for the parking garage!" said Sarah. "The executive elevator has an override!"

"Carina, take the west exit!" They weren't on the right side of the road to get there themselves.

"On it!"

"Chuck," said Sarah, "That's the main exit!"

"I think Carina can handle it."

"Do you think they're actually going to come out the _front_ door?"

A limo pulled out of the east exit at high speed. "I hate it when you're right," said Chuck, hunching slightly as he pressed down on the accelerator. Sarah braced for impact.

They hit the limo at an angle, and the limo did what they wanted it to do. It came to a stop, jammed between their vehicle and the side of the road. Sarah climbed out the window, while Chuck went to check the driver of the car.

Carmichael sat in the driver's seat, stunned a bit, his wounded arm crudely bandaged to stanch the flow of blood. Sarah checked the other side. "Chuck, there's nobody here."

Chuck stood up. "Carina, did you get them?"

"Nobody on this side, Chuckles."

"Then where–?"

"Chuck, watch out!" yelled Sarah.

Chuck heard the sound of an engine and turned to see what was coming. Lines of fire drew themselves along his cheek and he fell back.

"Ha!" yelled Vivian, as their van sped away. The limo suddenly lurched into motion, and Sarah jumped back as it climbed the curb and drove after the van.

Sarah ran to Chuck with a cloth in her hand, pressing it against his cheek.

"Sarah, what are you doing? We have to go after them." Chuck turned to get back in the van but Sarah prevented him from going anywhere.

"No, Chuck! We can't!"

* * *

Vivian Volkoff sat back, smiling broadly, flushed with excitement. "One for me, Agent Bartowski."

"And I'm sure it was very personally gratifying," said Riley, his voice harsher than usual with the pain in his leg. "But we have to go to ground, now."

"No, we don't, Mr. Riley." Vivian held out her hand, her claws, smeared with blood and traces of skin. "Now it's Chuck's turn to hide."

* * *

**A/N2** For anyone who doesn't know, Gustav Holst's music in the Mars section of his orchestral suite 'The Planets' is the source for practically every science fiction anthem since Star Wars. In canon they had Morgan use the Imperial March. Same idea.

I brought Hannah back simply because the canon idea that two of the CIA's best agents would shirk their duty merely for a wedding rehearsal was both stupid and treasonous. Not to mention that three of them (Chuck, Sarah, and Frost) somehow managed to let Vivian slip out from between them _and didn't chase after her_, preferring instead to go back to the same wedding rehearsal. And where did Vivian go, anyway? One minute she's standing in front of Chuck, the next, Sarah shoots Riley and she's nowhere to be seen, even though Sarah had to be standing right behind her.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N** A bit late, according to my own preferred schedule, but my company had its Christmas party last night. This was a strangely difficult chapter to write, too. Aiming for a slightly fluffier tone than I usually attempt.

* * *

"_Somebody lived."_

"_Use it or lose it."_

"_This is a horrible idea." _

"_Now it's Chuck's turn to hide."_

* * *

"Alright, we're airborne now, Bartowski," said Casey. "You happy?"

"I'll be happy when that bitch's head is on a spike!" snapped Sarah. She reached out and touched Chuck's chin, crooning, "Look what she did to his face."

"I'm looking," said Carina, swabbing gently at the bloody lines on Chuck's cheek. "Between her nails and the truck she really did a number on him. Much worse than you."

Sarah reached up a hand to cover her own cheek. "You noticed?" Not even Chuck saw those lines, his mother had made them invisible.

Chuck reached out and moved her hand down, but still saw nothing. Casey took a squint too, he appreciated a good scar (sign of prowess and all that), but he also saw nothing. Chuck found that oddly comforting.

"Nothing marks you that I don't notice," said Carina calmly. "Especially on the inside. It just took me a while to understand what I was seeing."

Casey understood what he was seeing, and worse, hearing, all too well. "Greta, get me a barf bag."

Sarah and Carina smiled together. Same old Casey. When Greta actually brought Casey his barf bag they burst out laughing. Even Chuck started to smile but winced when the expression pulled on his wounds. Greta looked at them like they were crazy and went back to getting the blood out of her clothes.

* * *

"Don't worry about your appearance, Chuck," said General Beckman at the briefing. "We have excellent plastic surgeons on call. We can't allow an agent of your caliber to be so distinctively scarred."

"It's not the marks but the marking that matters, General," said Casey. "Vivian has his DNA now. She can wipe him out any time she wants."

Carina whacked him on the arm. "Geez, Casey, why not say it in front of the _sister_, too?"

"Are you nuts? She's ready to blow."

"Good of you to notice, Colonel," said the General. "I'll try to find a way to bring her up to speed a little more tactfully after this meeting, when she gets back from her doctor. Sarah, we'll do everything we can to keep Chuck safe. Let me hear Greta's report, and then we'll review the recordings while we still can, see if there's a reason Vivian hasn't followed through with her bizarre vendetta."

Greta's report of her experience in the meeting room was cold, emotionless, precise, until the gunplay started. Her report of her attack on the hapless cleanup crew showed considerably more…enthusiasm.

"Thank you, Agent…Greta," said Beckman, as soon as she could get a word in edgewise. "You are dismissed."

"Sorry, General," said Casey as she left.

Now_ he's sorry. _"Don't be, Colonel, she fit the profile. I knew what I was signing up for."

"I don't know," said Chuck carefully. "Maybe if she just thought of her marks as victims she hasn't gutted yet, she'd do better in Roan's course."

"Don't hold your breath, Bartowski," said Casey. "I think she likes the reputation."

"I'll certainly suggest it to him," said Beckman. "She creeps him out. Let's review the footage, shall we?"

The recordings matched Greta's account remarkably well. "See, General, how far back from the table this guy Riley is standing? Holding the device straight out?"

"He's displaying the weapon."

"I don't think so, General," said Carina, the most experienced shopper. "He would be moving side-to-side, to let each buyer see it at the best angle."

"Instead it's like he's got his field of fire mapped out," said Casey. "He knows they're all in the kill zone. Only his head is moving."

'If we assume Riley is standing as close as he can," said Chuck, "That gives us the maximum angle of dispersion." He drew a line from the victim on the left, to the Norseman, and then to the victim on the right. "Notice how there are no chairs closer to that end of the table? Anyone sitting there would have forced him to stand back here somewhere to get them in the field, and that would have looked too suspicious."

"A shotgun, rather than a rifle," muttered Casey. "That's good. A dispersed field means a reduced range. So Chuck should be safe up here."

"Unless the device can be focused, a beam rather than a cloud."

"Ever heard of 'scatter', Bartowski?" asked Casey, watching the men in the room die. "That sound isn't enough to be killing them."

"At least not without their DNA," said Sarah, sounding doubtful.

"It's not killing them with sound, but they're acting as if they hear it," mused Chuck. "Whatever the Norseman does, their bodies experience it like a sound. A vibration."

Too much speculation, not enough hard data. "Do we have anything on the other spectra?" asked Beckman.

Casey flipped through the different frequencies they had recorded, just the basics. They didn't have the equipment on hand to dig for more. "Infrared shows them getting a bit hotter."

"Could they be, uh, cooked, somehow, like a microwave?" asked Carina.

"Doubt it," said Casey, used to waiting for minutes for his Hot Pockets. "Too small, and it worked too fast."

"There would be traces, if it was microwaves," said Chuck. "Greta brought back some tissue samples, didn't she?" She had something in a bag that was all icky at the bottom.

"She cut off fingers so we could ID everybody," said Casey, "But I suppose you could call them that too."

"This discussion is going nowhere," said Beckman. "We need more data, and we need it fast. Chuck, you will go into lockdown in the lab the second you get back. It's the most insulated room on the planet, hopefully that will mean something. The recordings and the tissue samples will go for analysis. I'll have Vivian, Riley, and this third person put on watchlists at every point of entry, in case they need to get closer than the other side of the world."

"What do we do, General?" asked Casey.

"Are you a praying man, Colonel?"

"Not usually." He'd always been more a 'God helps those who help themselves' kind of guy.

"Then nothing, for now. Dismissed."

* * *

Team B walked into…Fairyland?

"What's all this" asked Chuck.

"Don't ask me," said Manoosh, as he walked by with another strand of lights. "I'm just the harried underling."

"Manoosh!" bellowed Ellie. "They're not twinkling!"

"Cover me." Manoosh ducked behind them as Ellie stormed out of her office, as big as a house and twice as hormonal.

"Where'd he go?"

"Um," said Chuck, as the rest of his team blocked the view as best they could. "Who?"

Ellie reached down and picked up a strand of lights, pulling her assistant out of his cover. "Manoosh. These lights have to twinkle."

"Yes, ma'am."

"This place has to be magical."

"Yes, ma'am."

"_Magical_, Manoosh!"

"El," said Chuck hesitantly, distracting her, and Manoosh scurried gratefully away, "You're scaring Casey."

_Uh-oh. _Not distracted, so much as…redirected. Ellie took a step forward, and the entire team took a step back.

Ellie grabbed Chuck's chin, forcing his head firmly to one side, careful not to stretch the skin. She looked at his wounds, but found little to complain about with Carina's first aid. "Why aren't you in the lab, Chuck?"

"On my way." He slid past his sister and escaped. Halfway down the hall a moment of courage overtook him…

"Move it along."

…but it passed, and he sealed himself away from his sister with only a slight pang of regret for the rest of his team. No twinkle lights in here, at least.

Out in the hall, Ellie turned back to the rest of the them, slowly walking backwards. "And where are you three going?"

Sarah looked surprised. "Oh."

Carina looked confused. "Um…"

Casey pointed back down the hall. "Mission…"

"I didn't think so," said Ellie. "I have guests coming and this place has to be perfecter than perfect."

Sarah had a sudden, horrible thought. "It's not the Very Awesomes, is it?"

"The Ve–? Ha. _Ha!_ We'll show you awesome," Ellie threatened as she swept majestically away.

Casey jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the exit so near...

"Now!" said Ellie.

…Yet so far.

* * *

Ellie was missing one of her people. Casey was an artist with the scrub-brush and even Carina was pulling her weight, but she needed someone to get the break room in order, and especially cover up that damned soda machine. Manoosh was still dragging his feet writing a program to manipulate current flow to her non-twinkling twinkle lights. That left Sarah.

Carina suggested she check the bathrooms, but Ellie saw through that little ploy. She went to her booth instead. The sensors there would tell her…crap, apparently. Garbage numbers that fit no known profile, and the waves were all wrong, even she could tell that much. She checked the thermal imaging.

_Uh-huh. _ That was not a Chuck-shaped blob radiating all that heat.

Ellie didn't really need to track Sarah's signals, but the only way to tell the first set to ignore her was to bring up a second set. Ellie shrugged. It was good as an exercise, and some baseline metrics on Sarah might come in handy someday. For fun Ellie started comparing Chuck with Sarah, allowing for the usual gender differences. Chuck's stats had gone down a lot from his training, but he still ran a little hotter than her, in most ways.

Ellie frowned. _That can't be right._

She tightened her focus on Sarah.

* * *

The elevator hummed to a stop. The door opened, and a tall, older man with long shaggy hair got out, courteously holding the door open for the woman following him. He looked around, taking in the hall, the break area. The soda machine. "He wasn't kidding…"

"If only the nation had that kind of security," said the woman. "I wonder how I missed that the first time around."

"Dad!"

Stephen J. Bartowski turned, pretending to search the hall. "That's my daughter's voice, and my daughter's belly, so she's gotta be here somewhere…"

"Very funny, Dad." Ellie hugged her father, nodding at her mother over his shoulder. "I see it didn't take you long to find him."

"Long?" said Mary, amazed by the relative warmth of her son's substitute-mother's welcome. She would have held a grudge much longer. "When I got to the rental agency, they had a car waiting for me with his coordinates in the GPS."

Ellie rolled her eyes. "Way to be subtle, Dad."

"Hey, it was twenty years for me, too, you know."

Hands flew to ears. "I'm not listening, I'm not listening, la-la-la-la." Ellie fled up the hall, and her parents followed.

"Who's not listening?" asked Carina, coming out of the office with a towel over her shoulder and her hair in her eyes.

"Agent Miller!" said Stephen. "Happy to finally meet you."

"Orion?" said Carina, recognizing the voice. She brushed the hair from her eyes, an automatic response in the presence of a male.

"In the flesh."

Carina looked him over, smiling. "You look like you sound. I like it."

Mary cleared her throat loudly.

"Relax, Frost, she's not that girl anymore," said Casey, coming through the doorway. He pulled off his rubber gloves before offering to shake hands. "Orion."

"Stephen, please," said the older man, shaking Casey's hand. "This is a family thing."

"In a secure government facility."

"We were asked to come here," said Mary.

"And it's not like I don't know more about this complex than you and Manoosh combined," added Stephen. "Speaking of whom…?"

"Orion!" said Manoosh, coming behind them all and pushing his way through. "I am _so _glad to see you. Really, really glad. You just have no idea…"

"You're glad, we get it," said Mary. She looked around for the nerd she'd come all the way back to see. "Where's Chuck?"

* * *

Sarah sat on her husband's lap in the Intersect room, listening. His every heartbeat was precious to her.

"Sarah, you have to go." Had to escape. This was the first place Ellie would look.

Sarah tightened her grip, pressing her head against his chest, hooking her legs over the arm of the chair. "I'm not leaving, Chuck," she said firmly. "I'm not going to be locked outside a room, waiting while some loonie with an ultimate weapon is out to kill my husband."

"You can't protect me from an ultimate weapon, Sarah, that's sort of the definition of 'ultimate'."

_Where's Carina when I need her?_ Sarah imagined herself hitting Chuck on the arm, she was too comfortable to do it for real. "You and Casey are a pair, you know that? First he tells me Vivian can kill you at any time, and now you tell me I can't stop her." She started to cry, getting his shirt wet. "I know I can't protect you, even if I jumped in front of the beam!"

"I'm sorry, Sarah."

"Then stop trying to send me away. Agent Sarah might do some good out there, but Wife Sarah really needs to be here with you."

The CIA had a lot of agents, but he had only one wife. Dying was horror enough, but dying alone was worse. Chuck hated to be alone. He couldn't lie or keep a secret to save his life, so he'd even managed to make sharing into an offensive technique. "Then stay with me for the rest of my life."

That got a bit of a smile out of her. "HIja."

Chuck frowned down at her awkwardly, not really able to move his head since her head was right below his chin. "Sarah? When did you learn to speak Klingon?"

She pulled away from his chest to answer him. "For Comic-Con. It was supposed to be a surprise."

He smiled. "Well, color me surprised."

The door unsealed, the Dreaded Ellie framed by it. "Chuck? Sarah?" Chuck spun the chair around. "We've got company."

* * *

They had to bring in more chairs. When Manoosh had made the original call Chuck hadn't been in lockdown.

"So this is all your fault, then?" asked Carina.

Manoosh ducked behind Casey, a large but not a particularly safe choice. "Hey, I called them because Chuck wanted to show them his project. It wasn't my idea to get the General involved."

Orion twitched. "Diane–?"

"Me, Dad," said Ellie quickly. "Manoosh told me he'd called you, and then I saw all the lights going up, and I thought about how this was our first holiday back together and if I had to spend it stuck in a hole in the ground I didn't want it to feel like I was stuck in a hole in the ground and I'm afraid I may have gone a little bit overboard…"

"A _little_?" said Manoosh, Carina, and Casey together.

"So, Chuck, you have a project you wanted to show us?" asked Ellie.

"Yeah, real smooth, El, but okay." Sarah slid off his lap and Chuck stood, walking over to his console. "Mom and Dad, um…this isn't supposed to be a Christmas present, since I had no idea when I'd get a chance to show it to you, and really, given the audience Christmas would have been a seasonally inappropriate choice anyway–"

"Just play the damn thing, Bartowski!" barked Casey. "Motormouths, the lot of you."

Mary frowned. _Not all of us_. Did her children take so little after her?

"Okay, jeez," said Chuck, twitching his finger on the mouse.

Music flowed from the speakers, as baby photos appeared on the screens, flickering from one to another in time to the music. Stephen and Mary joined hands unconsciously, as the parade of family photos from happier days surrounded them all. Casey and Carina recognized Frost and Orion, and deduced who the children were, since they looked so little like their adult selves. Sarah and Manoosh recognized the photos of Ellie sleeping in the old car. Family photos, some staged but others taken by passing helpful strangers at various vacation spots.

Mary remembered them so well, remembered ducking her head, or moving suddenly, to blur the image of her face. She wondered if it was as obvious to the others as it was to her, how she was promoting her family just to shield herself. Hiding in Volkoff's shadow had been second nature.

As Ellie grew into a young woman, trophies and awards appeared. Physical as well as academic excellence, and Mary smiled proudly. They didn't take completely after their father.

The music turned somber as all the images with Mary in them started falling like rain to the lowest screens, where they vanished altogether. The images of Ellie followed, leaves settling to the forest floor, and tears filled her mother's eyes that so much potential was wasted, lost.

Stephen stopped appearing, too, most likely because he was the one taking the pictures. A young Morgan appeared, and Chuck started to smile again. School photos became most common, but Ellie's awards stopped, as she no longer had the time for the kind of activities that would get her awards.

* * *

Ellie stopped watching the parade, having no desire to remember those days. She moved closer to Sarah. "We need to talk later," she said quietly. "I have something important to tell you."

Sarah nodded, still rapt in her new family's life on the screen. She knew the photos, most of them, from the many albums on the shelves, but the music and the motion made them seem alive somehow, a story being told. She had no photos, no past like this. She had solitude, and pain. In these images she could see the echoes of that pain, but where she had been lost to it Chuck and Ellie had somehow kept each other afloat. "Where have I heard this music before?"

"Probably in the lab sometime," said Ellie. "Manoosh has been fiddling with it for weeks. I hear it all the time now."

* * *

The awards and trophies returned, but this time held by Chuck, earned by Chuck. Yet for every image of his smiling, proud face, there were others of Ellie, also smiling, also proud, always behind him, always supporting him. There he was in a Stanford sweatshirt, Ellie holding him proudly. The awards may have been a recognition of his achievements, but he was her work, her achievement, unrecognized.

Mary sat there, covered in shame, and wondered what the point of this exercise was. Ellie really had done the opposite of everything that she had taught her as a mother. Surely Chuck of all people hadn't intended to humiliate her publicly like this. He was always about the positive.

Then she realized she was doing it again. This wasn't about her, this was about them. The trials, the suffering, were there, but this wasn't about them either. This was a story of triumph, and what was triumph without trial. Ellie may have rejected her lessons but she had to learn them first. Mary wondered for a moment what her life would have been like if she had learned Ellie's lessons instead. Could she live that life, become that kind of mother?

The first image of Devon appeared.

_Or grandmother?_

* * *

"Chuck, your phone is ringing," said Ellie.

"My what?" Chuck pulled the phone from his pocket, but even if it had had any bars down here, the only people who would have called him were already in the room. "It's not my phone, Ellie."

"Then what's that noise?" said Ellie, clapping her hands to her ears.

* * *

**A/N2** Hmm. Looks like the Norseman…missed.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N** All the names I used in the story are made up.

* * *

"_Look what she did to his face."_

"_You're scaring Casey__."_

"_You can't protect me from an ultimate weapon__." _

"_What's that noise?__"_

* * *

When the President travels, he has a motorcade, lots of cars, lots of drivers and guards to keep him safe as he goes about the nation's business. Kings, Prime Ministers, Popes and princes get them too.

Ellie had the Dustbin Patrol.

Carina called Davis, and Casey's Crown Victoria flew down the streets of DC, a motorcade of one, with a police escort fore and aft. In a town full of visiting dignitaries this drew no attention at all.

Hospital services were ready and waiting, and they took over as soon as Casey stopped the car. He didn't notice. "You, you, and you," he said, pointing to the nearest available security personnel. Sarah backed him up as he herded his new team out of easy earshot. "NSA," he said, flashing his credentials. He pointed at Sarah but gave no names. "CIA. DEA will be along in a moment."

"Jesus Christ," said one officer, catching a glimpse of Ellie's profile, and long brown hair through the hovering crowd. "Who the hell is this broad?"

"Eyes front, soldier," snapped Casey, and he suddenly had the man's full attention. "That's need to know , and the only thing you need to know is that no one needs to know. Got it?"

"Sir! Yes, sir," yelled the man, snapping a perfect salute. "It's been a quiet night, sir."

"Good man," said Casey, noting the man's name and badge number. He turned to Sarah. "Keep a lid on things inside. I'll go back to base and brief the General."

* * *

"Chuck!" shouted Devon, unable to pass the officer who took his orders very seriously. Chuck nodded, and he let the doctor through. "Chuck, what's going on? What happened to Ellie?"

Crap. Chuck dragged Devon into an empty room. "How did you know–?"

"The nurse paged me, they recognized her." Devon flipped out his wallet, Ellie's picture front and center.

"You showed pictures of her?"

"Had to," said the blond Adonis. "It's the only way to keep the single ones off me."

Chuck winced. The number of screw-ups concealed in that one statement…Okay, he was here, put him to good use. "We need the top cellular biologist you have here, right now." Worry about clearances later.

"Matt Johnson's the best guy on the East Coast, but he's at a conference."

"What part of 'here and now' did you miss, Devon?"

Devon gestured vaguely back the way he'd come. "Uh…Doug…lab…"

"Good." Chuck grabbed Devon's arm and pulled him from the room and up to the overzealous officer. "Take this guy with you, go there and bring him back with you. _Now_, Devon. I'll fill you in while Doug is saving Ellie's life." He watched them run off. _Or trying to._

* * *

Back in the lab (Ellie's lab, that is, not Doug's)…

Casey sat at Ellie's desk, using her monitor to deliver the bad news.

"Why Ellie, Colonel? This makes no sense."

"Assuming they meant to target her."

"You think they were after Chuck, or someone else in that room?" asked Beckman. "That the device misfired somehow? I find it hard to believe that Ellie is more genetically similar to Chuck than Chuck is."

Casey shrugged, not a casual gesture. "We know nothing about the Norseman except that Alexei Volkoff felt it was too dangerous to use, and we don't know why he felt that. If it's supposed to kill the user I've seen no sign of it. The only person who called it his deadliest weapon also called his plasma grenades 'impossible to defuse'." He waved a hand, dismissing that claim as the airy persiflage it was. "She may not be able to lie but she may believe a lie someone else tells her."

"I have to agree, Colonel. If only because I can't imagine why or how they'd choose _her_. There's no connection between Vivian and Ellie, and all of Ellie's publicly available documentation uses the Woodcombe name." She sighed. "Still, the first order of business is to go and see."

All due diligence. Ellie spent no time in her fake office, just home or the lab, and there's no way one of Volkoff's agents got into the lab. "Carina's closest."

Beckman nodded. "You return to the hospital to await further developments. I'll send Carina to check the house, and read Hannah in. As compromised as he is, I want Chuck wearing his Agent hat. Leave the analysis to cooler heads."

* * *

"All right, Chuck," said Devon sternly. He blocked the exit, folded his arms and tried to glower. "Let's have it."

Chuck could have moved him in any number of ways, but that was something a spy would do, not a bro-in-law. "The device is called…you know what, who cares what the device is called. It uses the subject's DNA to find them, and to kill them, but we don't know how, exactly."

"Why would anybody want to kill Ellie?"

Chuck turned the other cheek, the one with stripes on it. "They don't, they want to kill _me_."

Devon automatically checked the wounds for infection and leakage, but saw nothing to worry about. "That Y chromosome's a deal-breaker, Chuck. How could something targeted on your DNA find hers?"

"We're about to go looking for an answer to that question, Devon," said Carina, walking up to them. "I just got a call from the General. She wants me to check the house, see if anyone went there for her DNA on purpose." When Devon blanched she added, "We expect the answer to be no, but we need to dot our Is."

"Do you need Devon to go with you?" asked Chuck.

"Me?" asked Devon.

"It might help, it's your house," said Carina, taking the hint for once. "Just try not to touch anything until I give the all clear."

Devon got the door for her. "You're the boss."

"You say the sweetest things…"

* * *

A little later, in a decent but not-too-expensive suburb of Washington DC…

Someone watched from behind the curtains of a house as a car parked down the street and a beautiful redhead, who didn't live there, got out, along with a handsome blond man, who did. The woman walked off around the house, not up to the door.

The watcher got out a cheap, planless phone, scrolling through a short list of contacts. Selecting one, the watcher tapped out a quick note, informing her contact of exactly where Carina Miller was.

* * *

"All right, Charles, what have you got for me?"

Sarah got up and left Chuck sitting by Ellie's bedside. "Devon heard about Ellie and came down, so Chuck used him to get a cellular biologist down here ASAP." She showed him a picture of the guy, in case he came back while Sarah wasn't there. "He took some samples and went back to his lab. Devon is with Carina."

_And out from underfoot._ "Good thinking."

"It was Chuck's idea."

Something made a chiming sound. Neither Sarah nor Casey bothered to check their own phones, those were always set on vibrate. They looked over to the pile of Ellie's clothes and other possessions that had been left on the other bed. Sarah walked over and pulled Ellie's phone from her bag, to check the display. Who would be trying to text her now?

* * *

Chuck sat alone in his sister's room, by his sister's side. All the skills the Intersect had given him, and he was helpless. All the knowledge the Intersect gave him, and he didn't know what he needed to know now. The secrets in his head were supposed to protect the country, not the people in it, not the things that mattered.

_Ellie, what do I do now?_

Ellie's hand moved, rising up from the bed to touch her belly. Chuck reached out and gently wrapped his fingers around hers.

Under their joined hands, her skin rippled.

He flashed.

* * *

Carina had finished walking the perimeter, and was doing a room by room check of all possible entrances. Basically she was duplicating the examination the house had received when Daniel Shaw, under the influence of Charles Carmichael, had attacked Ellie nearly a year ago. The entrance he'd used then was still sealed now, and none of the alarms had gone off on the other entry points. The most likely places to attract a DNA thief, bed and bath, showed no signs of approach since the house had last been occupied by its legitimate residents.

More and more it looked like Ellie was an accidental victim, welcome news, but not without its own share of problems.

Devon stayed in the kitchen, making tea, and he didn't even really like tea, but he had to do something and Ellie liked tea. She'd be back to drink it, of course she would. Chuck would make sure of that.

Carina's phone rang. "Miller."

"Carina, someone's watching you," said Sarah.

"Well, yeah, but Devon's been a complete gentleman."

"Kill the lights, scope the neighbors," said Casey, muted until now. They must have been in transit. "We're on our way, but we need you to give us a target."

Carina went into the living room. "Devon, stay in the kitchen."

The tone of her voice made him nervous. He dropped the tea bags too hard and splashed on the counter. "What's up?"

* * *

The lights were twinkling, all over the lab…

"Chuck? What are you doing here?" asked Manoosh. "Who's with Ellie?"

"Our parents," said Chuck, not stopping. "You get my email?"

"Yeah," said Manoosh. "What are you going to do with the upload?"

Chuck turned his Agent Bartowski face on Ellie's harried underling. "What do you think I'm going to do with it? I'm going to save my sister's life, and you're going to make it possible. Right now." He looked away and Manoosh suddenly felt free to move. "While you're doing that, I need to talk to the General."

Manoosh stopped in mid-scurry. "You mean you haven't even cleared this with her yet?"

Chuck waved him on. "I'm not asking permission, Manoosh. I'm apologizing in advance."

* * *

They heard Casey kicking the door in, from three houses away, but that's all they heard. No shots, no resistance. The curtains in the window jerked wildly, and went still.

Carina took a sip of her tea and made a face. It wasn't much of a soothing brain bath (or whatever they called it on the box) when it was warm, much less now. Being the lone agent in a possible assault scenario was no time for a soothed brain anyway. She really wanted a gun in her hand, but they made Devon nervous so the mug was a good substitute. If she'd thought there was a real problem she'd have let Devon be nervous.

After just about long enough, the phone buzzed. "False alarm, Stampede, just a lonely hausfrau. We'll stay here for a while longer, talk to Mrs. Smith about what else she may have seen. You two have to get back to the hospital ASAP."

Carina could think of no good reasons for that, and kept her voice as neutral as she could. "Why?"

"Ellie's gone into labor."

* * *

"Mrs. Smith, the divorcee who lives down the street?" said Devon, adding, "She's got the hots for me." As if someone would find this news.

"You've had a stalker for how long, and you never mentioned it to anyone?"

"She's just a lonely older woman."

"Who texts your wife about redheaded 'other women.' Enemy action is enemy action, Devon."

"She's no enemy."

Carina just drove on, silently. She was very eloquent with silence.

Devon's smile slowly faded. "Is she?" _Not awesome._

"She has hostile intentions and the will to act on them, that's more than enough. Whether she's a threat or not is a different story. She may not be one now, but if she thinks she's unnoticed she'll step up her game. This is good if you're trying to lure a spy into a trap, not so much if we don't want crazed stalkers peeping in our windows." Especially if the so-called 'crazed stalker' really _was_ a spy, using the well-known ploy as a cover to get close. Even if she wasn't, no one tried to hurt one of Carina Miller's few friends and got away with it. "Something tells me she'll be leaving you alone from now on."

* * *

"Chuck!" Ah! Right in his ear.

"Uh, yes, Mom?"

"What do you think you're doing? And it better not be what I _think_ you're doing."

What did she think he could be doing at a time like this? "I'm saving my sister, that's what I'm doing."

"At two hundred miles an hour, inside city limits?"

Beckman must have ratted him out. "Um…no?"

"Chuck, there's no other reason for you to take the Nighthawk."

Actually there was, as Chuck could hear Manoosh trying to explain in the background. As someone whose knowledge of riding a motorcycle came out of a box, he was willing to let the little nerd take point on the whole explanation thing, but then he thought of something frightening. "Why are you there, Mom? Is Ellie improving?"

"I don't think so."

* * *

Meanwhile, back at the hospital…

"Unstable?" said Devon.

Doug tried to see the positive. "Yes, but gradually so. Whatever happened to her, it has her cells functioning at a very low level, and getting lower. It should be enough for us to save the baby, but anything we do to save the child will almost certainly, uh…"

Carina was the only one there who could finish the sentence. "Kill the mother."

* * *

Chuck couldn't believe his ear. "What?"

"They're oxygenating her blood and forcing her heart to beat. It's not helping her but the baby is settling down. We have a little time but not enough to waste."

A second voice popped up in his ear. "Agent Bartowski."

"General," said mother and son together.

"I just got off the phone with Leo Dreyfus. Someone just removed Hartley Winterbottom from his facility against his advice and without his consent. He tried to delay but someone he called Merlin incited a riot and he lost control of the situation."

Had to be Vivian. Strike at Ellie and take her father, like she did before. "I'm almost there. What kind of vehicle, General?"

"A black truck. Hartley was chained in the back."

"I'm on it, Chuck," said Hannah. "Facility cameras show it headed west. I'll try to get a flyby."

"Good," said Chuck. "That means I can open this baby up."

"Don't you dare wipe out on me, Chuck!" said Mary.

He knew what she really meant, what she really needed. "I could use a navigator, if that'll make you happy."

"How about weapons control?" That would make her happier.

"Can I steer?" asked Manoosh.

"They've got a drone!" said Hannah.

"Manoosh, take over," said Mary. She had weapons to prep.

* * *

Mary opened fire, targeting the undercarriage. The tires may not go flat, but they still had to be able to turn. "They're dead in the water," she said as the rear of the truck dragged the rest to a stop.

"Drone is locking on!"

Mary targeted the lift mechanism with the missile, and the slab of metal crashed down, a perfect ramp. Chuck rode up into the truck, safe from the drone.

Hartley was in the back, both cuffed and caged. Someone lay on the floor, keys by his hand. Chuck took them, freeing the man he wanted and locking the door on the man he didn't.

"Who are you?" said Hartley, flinching away from his rescuer.

Chuck took off his helmet. "It's me, Chuck. I'm here to rescue you."

Hartley looked relieved. "Agent Charles…"

"Bartowski!" Chuck looked for the source of the cold, arrogant voice, and found it in the cage. "Winterbottom belongs to me."

"How do you know my name?" asked Chuck.

The man smiled, an unpleasant expression. "I know everything about you and your whole pathetic family, _Chuck_."

"Who are you?"

"My name's Decker," said the man. "Clyde Decker. Flash on that, the next time you load up your precious Intersect. If you know what's good for you, you'll leave him behind."

Hartley clutched Chuck's arm. "Please don't leave me."

"Hop on, Hartley," said Chuck, and Hartley obeyed. "Put on the spare helmet, this thing is fast."

Hartley did as instructed. Chuck grabbed his hands and pulled them tightly around his waist. "Hold on tight. _Do svedanya,_ Decker."

"You're a dead man, Bartowski."

Agent Bartowski looked back. "Mess with my family again and we'll see who dies."

* * *

Chuck and Hartley left the Nighthawk and reclaimed the Porsche, just as good for getting to the hospital, and less classified. No one tried to stop them as they ran into the Emergency Room. The nurse buzzed them right through but when they got to Ellie's room…

Sarah stood there, alone in an empty room, staring at the bed.

"Sarah?" asked Chuck, a world of questions in one breathless word.

"Chuck," she said, coming around the bed to embrace her husband. Then she noticed the other man. "Hi, Hartley."

"Hello," said Hartley, and Sarah gave him a sharp look.

"Sarah, where's Ellie?" said Chuck frantically.

"They took her away a little while ago–"

Chuck's face crumpled, and his body followed. "No."

She grabbed his shoulders on the way down, and pulled him up to see her again. "To maternity. Whatever they did to stop her labor stopped working. They wanted her in a place where they could save the baby if we couldn't save her." She looked at Hartley again.

Chuck was having trouble with words. "Show me."

They took the stairs, faster than those glacial hospital elevators.

In the maternity wing, Chuck recognized the officer from before and went immediately toward him. In an alcove, Devon and Stephen stood talking to a third man in a blue lab coat.

"I'm sorry, Devon," the man was saying, "I have no answers for you. There's no poison, no toxins except the kind she's making herself. Her cells are shutting down and there are no chemical or biological traces to explain it."

"That's because you're not looking deeply enough," said Hartley. "You'd need an electron microscope to see the damage done by the Norseman. She hasn't been poisoned, she's been enhanced, that's the problem. The molecules of her DNA won't unchain."

The lab guy snapped his fingers. "No RNA transfer?"

"Exactly. Without transfer RNA all the DNA in the world won't help her." Hartley looked at the other men. "It's like an executive without a really good secretary."

The lab guy looked at him, offended. This was no time for humor. "Who the hell are you, and how do you know any of this?"

Hartley glared at the man, who took a step backward by reflex. "I know because I built the Norseman. My name is Alexei Volkoff."

* * *

**A/N2 **And only one more chapter to go, too!


	4. Endings, Some of Them Happy

**A/N** Big final note, not so much up here.

* * *

"Now_, Devon."_

"_I'm apologizing in advance."_

"_They're dead in the water." _

_"My name is Alexei Volkoff."_

* * *

Just a few hours before, on a deserted road somewhere in West Virginia, circa 200 mph…

"Where am I?" said a soft voice, audible only because of the speaker. "Why are my hands… chained?" The voice dropped, seismically. "Decker!"

Chuck tongued the microphone switch, his hands otherwise occupied controlling the Nighthawk. "No, Hartley. This is Agent Charles Bartowski, Stephen's son, riding in front of you. We're on a super-motorcycle. I had to chain your hands so you wouldn't fall off."

"Where are we, Charles?" Hartley asked. "Why can't I see anything?"

"Yeah, uh, sorry about that," said Chuck. "We had to put the lenses for the upload in the helmet, they sort of block the view. Believe me, you don't want to see how fast we're going."

"Upload?" The mere word brought…odd. It wasn't bringing anything. "What upload?" He felt around inside himself mentally.

"The one you tried and failed to make for yourself."

No terror, but there was nothing wrong with his pride. "What do you mean, failed?"

"Do you remember Jane MacArthur, Hartley?"

Hartley started convulsing, pulling against the cuffs securing him to Chuck, but Chuck expected that and kept the bike steady as Hartley cried. "Oh, Jane. You were so beautiful, and I, I was so…so evil. Oh, what I did to you, Jane." He sighed, settling against Chuck's back heavily. "And you. What have you done to me, Charles?"

"Only what I had to, Hartley."

* * *

Just a little while ago, down in the lab…

"Hartley?" asked Mary. Manoosh looked up as she entered and gave her the tranq gun, leaving in haste. Mary put the gun in her pocket. "How are you doing? Where's Chuck?"

Hartley gestured at the closed doors of Ellie's office. "He's in there, explaining to your General how I'm no longer a danger to mankind. I imagine. How are you, Mary?"

She sat opposite him. "I'm…getting better," she said, ducking her head as if trying to convince herself that what she said was true. "Sleeping at night."

"Dreams?"

Only by stretching the meaning of the word could they be called that. "No. No dreams."

"How very fortunate you are."

"No," she said in a whisper. "Just a good liar." Her husband was there to hold her, that was the dream.

"I knew that," said Hartley, with a slight smile. "That's why I called you fortunate." He leaned forward, no longer smiling. "Unlike you I had no dreams. I was unable to deal with the horror of Volkoff even in sleep. Your son saved me from that."

_Endless torment, horror forever just out of view. _Now it was in view. This was a burden she could, had to share. She drew a long, shuddering breath. "I…used you, Hartley. And I can't even apologize for it."

What would be the point? "You would do it again."

"Yes. I would."

"And you would be right to do so," said Hartley, taking her hand. "You didn't use me, Mary. I was a monster. Mean, dictatorial, conniving. Manipulative and amoral. The only thing good about me was my teeth. You just…aimed me, and looking back on it I can only be grateful that you aimed me in the right direction."

She looked down at their hands. "Yes. Stephen says the same thing."

"We both admired you, you know," said Hartley. "Desired you. Who would not?" He pulled his hand from hers. "But I never deserved you, not like him. And now it's too late."

"It's never too late, Hartley," said Mary, touching his arm gently. "If it's not too late for me, it can't be too late for you. You can always make amends."

He huffed out the ghost of a laugh. "I imagine your son is even now being told to deliver me up to justice, Mary, when we're done. He seems quite good at accomplishing his objectives."

"After a fashion." Mary smiled. "Wait right here. I have something for you."

* * *

Right this very now…

"_My name is Alexei Volkoff."_

Orion blinked. Devon stared. Sarah moved, throwing Hartley against the wall with her knife at his throat.

Chuck's eyes bulged. "Hartley," he forced through clenched teeth. "We talked about this."

"I'm sorry, Charles," said Hartley, a real apology, not an I'm-sorry-I'm-about-to-betray-you apology. "The past, it creeps back, like a nightmare I can't escape." He looked past the knife to the person who held it. "My apologies to you as well, Mrs. Bartowski. Hartley Winterbottom, at your service."

The voice was almost the same, but this was not Alexei's face, nor Hartley's either. Sarah took a step back, knife at the ready but no longer poised to kill. What did Chuck talk about with this man, and why? "Chuck, what did you do?"

"In a minute," said Chuck. "Doug, take my father and Hartley to your lab, you should have a package waiting for you. After that, it's Hartley's show. Go." They left at a gratifying run.

"Chuck?" asked Sarah, her tone implying _Your minute's up._

Chuck looked back at the door to the room where his sister lay dying.

"Your mom's with her now, Chuck," said Devon. "Who was that guy, and why did he call himself by two different names?"

If anyone should be more frantic to get in there than him, it was Devon, so Chuck didn't argue the matter. He took out his phone, and activated an app. It sounded like music to confuse anyone trying eavesdrop, but it also suppressed any listening devices. "Hartley Winterbottom is his real name. He and I had a lot in common," he said quietly, looking for a place to sit. Sarah settled by him, and he took her hand, setting the phone on top of an old magazine on the table. "We both felt unworthy of the ones we loved. He wanted to be his mother's son, so he went looking for a way to make himself into a stronger man. But he didn't really understand strength."

"Volkoff seemed strong enough," said Sarah.

"If your idea of strength is manipulation, domination, and exercise of power, yes. Volkoff was all of those things." Chuck looked up at Devon. "Hartley used the Intersect prototype to upload memories of people he thought were strong, but they were stronger than him. They merged into the identity of Alexei Volkoff and suppressed Hartley entirely. For twenty years Volkoff was the world's most dangerous criminal, until we removed the memories and freed Hartley."

"And you brought him back to save Ellie? Not awesome, bro."

"Not exactly."

* * *

Hartley worked quickly, his every move watched by both Doug and Stephen. "You don't trust me."

"I'm just recording," said Doug, who was in fact just recording the process, in case this weapon appeared again.

"Should I trust you, Hartley?" asked Stephen. "You broke your mother's heart, and I wish I could say that was the worst of your crimes."

Hartley snorted, his hands continuing to do their work. "I don't deny it. But the Hartley you knew was weak," he said, his voice an avalanche, "And nearly catatonic from the weight of those crimes. Your son promised my mother that he would fix her son, and he has."

Unnoticed, Doug's face went blank as he worked through all the pronouns.

Hartley's definition of 'fixed' was very different from his mother's. Stephen hoped Chuck knew that. "So you _are_ Hartley," said Stephen.

Hartley flashed a grin at his former partner. "Oh, yes. Not exactly the Hartley you knew; enhanced considerably by Chuck's much wiser choice of memories to upload. Strong in character, not just in personality." He paused, and then said in a tone of bewilderment, "I feel the urge to grunt a lot."

* * *

From there to maternity…

"And General Beckman let you?"

"I…didn't exactly ask," said Chuck.

"Outstanding," said Devon.

_But not awesome._ "She's a General."

"I'm a little brother," said Chuck, his voice hard. "She knew better than to get in my way."

"Generals do," said Sarah, knowing this wouldn't be the end of it. "Do I want to know how you did it?"

Treachery and deception. Dreyfus he could have argued into it, but not Hartley. There were lots of ways around that, and as a spy herself she wouldn't have held any of them against him, although Devon might. But telling her about the upload lenses hidden inside the Nighthawk's spare helmet would have meant telling her about the Nighthawk in the first place, and he didn't have the courage for that. "No."

Manoosh, maybe. Hannah might know something, and Sarah resolved to interrogate them at the first opportunity. "Okay." She took his arm, needing his touch. Unfortunately climbing into his lap wasn't an option where they were. She rested her head on his shoulder, looking neither as happy or as tense as most of the people who sat there normally looked. "What do we do now?"

"Sit," said Devon stoically. "Wait."

"What he said," said Chuck, beginning to come down from the thrill of the chase. "Finding Hartley was the extent of my brilliant plan."

"What's he doing, anyway?" asked Devon.

"I couldn't think of anything to do," said Chuck. "I thought maybe Hartley knew of a cure, so I went to get him. We both needed him to be able to remember. I got lucky. _Really_ lucky."

Sarah noticed his trembling, but could think of no comfort to offer him. She squeezed his hand a bit harder.

"Some guy named Clyde Decker took him away from Dreyfus, I had to get him back." Chuck stopped to remember what the nasty man said. "He seemed to know a lot about me, and even the Intersect. Told me to flash on his name the next time I loaded up."

"Yeah," said Devon, "Like you'd be stupid enough to do that!"

Sarah tapped the back of Chuck's hand twice to let Chuck know she heard him, but she had no time to talk, she was thinking too hard. Whoever he was, this Decker guy had to be either incredibly stupid or incredibly dangerous, perhaps even both. Sarah would have loved to ask Hannah about it, but there was almost certainly name recognition software running on him. Obviously he expected them to do it, but Sarah was reluctant to do anything an enemy expected her to do.

Why did he want Hartley?

The door at the end of the hall opened, and a doctor came out, with Mary in tow. "Dr. Woodcombe?"

* * *

Green liquid sloshed in the container as Hartley ran back to the desperate family. He held up the capped vial in triumph as he rounded the corner. "We're here, Charles! We've done it."

Booted feet pounded the floor, and guns cocked ominously behind them. Hartley, Stephen and Doug turned, to find a horde of men with large weapons aimed at them. Stephen pushed Doug behind him as the leader approached. "Congratulations, Dr. Winterbottom," he said, his voice as flat and lifeless as his expression.

"You can't use those things here," spluttered Hartley. "This is a maternity ward."

The scarred man made a show of checking the signs. "Oh. My mistake," he said. He pulled out a silencer and screwed it on the barrel of his gun. "Wouldn't want to hurt little ears." He grabbed Hartley and pushed him back among his own men.

Chuck and the rest of his family surged forward, until the guns came up. "Tommy Delgado," said Chuck, and Sarah remembered where she'd seen the man's ugly face and dead eyes before.

"Charles, catch!" yelled Hartley, throwing the precious vial.

Tommy snatched it out of the air easily. "You should be more careful, Hartley," he said. "What if they'd missed?" The vial fell from his fingers. "Oops."

Chuck dove forward and caught it.

Tommy stepped on his hands, crushing the container, driving the shards into Chuck's flesh. He heard the crunch, but all he felt was his sister's life, dripping through his fingers. He looked up, into the barrel of Tommy's gun.

Tommy lifted his foot, letting Chuck live with his failure, backing away with his prize. "You were warned, Agent Bartowski."

Only Hartley looked back as they left, forcing him along. "I'm sorry, Charles."

Chuck lay there, staring at his hands, running in Christmas colors. Then the pain hit, and he tried to get himself off the ground with his elbows. Sarah and Stephen lifted his arms so he could stand.

Sarah stared at his hands in dismay. "Chuck, the antidote.."

"Don't worry, Sarah," said Stephen.

"You can't make more, Dad, not in time," said Chuck. "It's too late."

"It's all over," said Sarah.

Devon stepped out of the ward, grinning broadly. "It's a girl!"

* * *

They listened to the after-action report on Chuck's phone in the recovery room, as Ellie slept, utterly exhausted. Devon took care of Chuck's hands, while Mary claimed her new granddaughter and the rocker for herself. She didn't look ready to give up either one soon.

"We had them pinned, General," said Casey. "Then Chuck's Winterbottom grenade went off."

"I've never heard of that ordnance, Colonel," said Beckman.

"Let's just say they bit off more than they could chew, hostage-wise," said Carina. Not the meek little mouse they'd expected.

"What happened to Delgado?" asked Beckman.

Carina's confused "Who?" faded into the background as their phone changed hands again. "He abandoned his team and fled, like the traitor weasel he's always been."

"And Winterbottom?"

"We had him in custody, General," said Sarah, "But then he said he had amends to make, and apologized."

"Yeah, right before he flash-banged us. Probably took it off of one of Tommy's men."

"I see," said the General. "We'll hand this off to the Metro Police, I don't think Hartley can get very far on his own."

Mary smiled–

"_Wait right here. I have something for you."_

_She went to her bag and got a special card wallet out, and returned. "Take this. Use it when you need it."_

_Hartley opened the wallet. "A bank card?"_

"_Somebody once gave me two million for emergencies. This sounds like an emergency to me."_

"_But what about you?"_

_She ticked off the points on her fingers. "The CIA reinstated me, paid me, put me on leave, and have already processed my retirement as part of a package deal. Stephen has been busy reclaiming his patents and whatever parts of Roarke Industries were built off them. Roarke's dead and no one's fighting us on that, so money won't be an issue. On the other hand, he'll be needing a business manager."_

_Hartley smiled. "Let me know if you need a letter of recommendation."_

"_We're good, thanks."_

–and stroked little Clara's face once again.

"How's Ellie doing?" asked Beckman, not in her 'General' voice.

Chuck took the phone off mute, not that anyone there had been making any noise. "Resting comfortably, General. With Hartley as the magnet, Doug slipped right past Tommy's men and brought the antidote inside. My mother is holding my niece right now."

"Chuck, I'm on my way," said Sarah. "It sounds like you're in terrible danger."

"Danger?"

"Mortal peril, Bartowski," said Casey, puffing a bit as he ran. "You need your team on this one, trust me."

Chuck watched his mother rub noses with Clara. "Can't I just face the peril?" What is it about babies' noses?

"Nope," said Carina. "It's too perilous."

His mother, Agent Frost, was cooing. Yeah. _Fifteen minutes old and she beat us easily._

* * *

Vivian Volkoff sat at her desk, hard at work consolidating her acquisitions while meeting her commitments. The weapon-users of the world didn't care much who ran the companies they bought their toys from, as long as they got their toys as required. The Volkoff brand had quickly risen, even higher than her father's had. Carmichael was a treasure, and Riley heaven-sent.

A discreet knock sounded at the door. "Come."

Carmichael opened it, and stood in the entrance. "A messenger has arrived for you, Miss Volkoff."

She didn't look up. "Who from?"

Carmichael hesitated, but had nothing else to say, so he said it. "All he said was, your…your biggest fan."

Vivian looked up, frowning. That sounded a bit like a threat. She liked threats even less than mysteries. "Send him in."

Carmichael invited the messenger in, and followed at a safe distance. The miscreant shuffled across the floor, clearly unused to these surroundings.

Vivian had no time for him to come to his senses. "You have something for me?"

"Yes, Lady," said the man, his Russian as tattered as his clothes.

It wasn't immediately placed on the desk. "Well, let's have it."

He showed her a box. "He said you might pay me."

She raised a brow. "Didn't _he_ pay you?"

"He let me live, Lady. He said you might pay me."

"You will wait outside," she said. "I'll decide what payment you deserve after I see the message."

The man gulped nervously, and put the box on the table.

"Open it."

He lifted the lid and pushed it toward her. Inside was a simple flash drive. He left, and Carmichael left with him.

Vivian pulled out a computer, non-networked just for this purpose. The screen lit up, with a question in English. "The solution to all problems."

She typed _Death_, and pressed Enter. Her gasped, her heart racing.

Agent Charles Bartowski stared out of the screen at her. "Miss Volkoff," he said. "I was going to say Miss MacArthur, but it looks like your father's warning about the Norseman was true, it does destroy the user. I'm sorry. You're a very good businesswoman, it seems–the growth of your empire is remarkable–but you're a very poor marksman."

Those kind brown eyes hardened into something extremely cold and dangerous. "You _missed_, Vivian. Unless you intended to kill my pregnant sister, but I doubt you did."

_Oh God._ Vivian stood and put the chair between herself and the screen. She could almost feel her soul slipping away. Destroyed. Damned.

"I don't know what your issue is with me, or with Sarah, Vivian, but I do know this. You wanted my attention, my _full_ attention, You've got it." The screen went black, and she caught the smell of melted plastic. The power button did nothing when she pressed it.

She got her keys, and fumbled with the lock in the desk. Eventually she got it inside and opened the drawer, getting out a banded wad of money, its value beyond her ability to calculate at the moment. She took a few deep breaths, trying to look her usual unflappable self. "Carmichael!"

He opened the door instantly.

She held out the money. "Take this to that person outside and send him away. And dispose of that," she added, pointing to the dead laptop. "And send Mr. Riley in."

"Yes, Miss." He came forward and took the money and the blob.

She was staring out the window, watching things fall, when Riley came in. "What's the matter, Vivian?"

She turned. "Agent Charles is alive."

He stopped in shock. "That's impossible."

"He told me the most dangerous, most accurate weapon in the world missed, with his own breath and voice. We killed his _pregnant sister_, Mr. Riley! He'll stop at nothing to destroy us! Me!" She leaned forward on her desk, breathless. "What do we do now?"

Riley pulled out his gun. "There's only one thing we _can_ do."

She raised her head, staring at the weapon in his hand. "What do you mean?"

"Clearly you've outlived your usefulness, Vivian. Had to happen sooner or later. I'm just glad it was later. Losing Hydra was…unexpected."

"_My_ usefulness? You served my father, Mr. Riley. You serve _me_."

Riley shook his head. "Alexei Volkoff was a great man, Miss MacArthur, I could never have beaten him. I just had to wait until he left it all to you and then take it for myself. I'd let Agent Charles do the dirty work, of course…"

"You sent that bomber to kill Agent Walker."

He smirked at her, oozing condescension. "And I arranged Gustav's death, and several others besides. It wouldn't do for you to have anyone else to turn to."

"Did you know the Norseman was flawed?"

"Let's just say, 'unreliable'." Riley shrugged. "Useful enough, in the end. But now the only way to stop Agent Charles from coming after me too is to kill you myself, leaving your kingdom in the hands of someone who'll make a proper use of it. My hands."

Having no bridges left to burn was…liberating. "My kingdom? My father's empire, in your hands? You aren't fit to lick his boots, worm!"

Riley stepped up to the desk, leaned down to look her in the eye. "Your father is the worm, Vivian, you said so yourself. I was going to make this quick, but since you've decided to be unpleasant–"

Vivian swept up her bronze letter opener and impaled Riley's hand, pinning him to the desk. The gun went off but it missed. She picked up her statue of Artemis, and didn't miss. Riley fell heavily on the desk but didn't drop the gun.

Vivian Volkoff ran to the door and safety, closing the heavy wood on another bullet. Carmichael was gone, she'd sent him away like an idiot. She turned to run.

The door opened as she approached, and a bearded man stepped into the hall. She heard the sound of Riley running and bellowing behind her and didn't slow.

The newcomer, strangely, did not look at all surprised. "You might want to get behind me, Miss," he said, pulling out his own gun.

Vivian stopped, and held out a hand. "May I?"

The man opened his hand. "Certainly."

Vivian took the gun from his hand, turned in place and put a bullet between Riley's eyes.

"Nice shot," said the man.

"Thank you," said Vivian, panting. "He always did say I should learn to do my own killing."

Good advice, after a fashion. "I'd say you're off to a fine start."

Vivian took the gun from Riley's dead fingers and held out the one she'd used to its owner.

"I wouldn't hear of it, Miss Volkoff," he said, holding up his hands in negation. "That's your first, it's special. Keep it with my compliments."

"You're very kind."

"Not usually, Miss, and not today." He pulled a gun from behind him and put it in his front holster. "I come with an invitation. The people I work for are very interested in speaking with you about a mutually beneficial arrangement."

Like this one. She could use some allies. "You've certainly presented yourself in the best possible light, Mr…?"

He bowed, like a gentleman. "Quinn, ma'am. Nicholas Quinn."

* * *

**A/N **This is the end of my rewrite of season 4, and I am very, very glad. S3 had a solid story, with only a layer of bad story-_telling_ on top of it. The weakest part of S3 was in fact from the Honeymooners on, after the original writing team had been replaced by other writers, who also wrote most of S4. As all of you who've followed me this long should know, I try to stick to the story as much as I can, which is why my first season was almost exactly as long as canon S3 was. S4 had 24 episodes, but this second season of mine has only 17. A full 7 episodes worth of material (actually more, since I brought in material from both S3 and S5) boiled away.

Most of the material that dropped out was scattered over all the episodes. The Proposal/Wedding plot was almost totally unnecessary even in canon (everyone knew they would marry, so a simple question every fourth episode about how the wedding plans were coming would have been sufficient), but in my story it had no purpose whatsoever. I would have liked to keep Coup D'Etat in the mix, but it had only the most passing relevance to the Volkoff plot. Many useful bits were scattered in amongst the dross, so a great deal of work went into finding those bits and putting them where they could do some good. Similarly the numerous and glaring plot holes were filled in, or deleted entirely.

Snake in the Grass = Anniversary  
Runway Bride = Suitcase  
Who's There = Masquerade (+ Cubic Zirconium)  
One Step Forward = Couch Lock (+ Coup D'Etat)  
I love Terror = Aisle of Terror  
Photo Op + LA Story = First Fight + A Team + Muurder + Leftovers  
Fallen Angel = Fear of Death + Balcony (+ Wedding Planner)  
Dead Like Me = Phase Three  
Pushing Daisies = The Gobbler  
Wonder Falls = Pink Slip  
True Calling = CAT Squad (+ Other Guy)  
Haven = Agent X + Seduction Impossible  
Eureka = Gobbler + Push Mix (+ Other Guy)  
Moving On = First Bank of Evil (+ Wedding Planner)  
Serpent's Tooth = Family Volkoff + Last Details  
Hell's Fury = Cliffhanger + Push Mix

Vivian's story will continue into my rewrite of S5, which will focus on the Decker conspiracy, a story that was truncated in canon in favor of the amnesia plot. There will be no amnesia plot here. Sarah has already been rendered immune from the Intersect. My S5 will instead reveal the full story of Project Omaha, and Chuck's place in it. But that's for next year. In a few days it will be my birthday, and then Christmas, so I am treating myself, by never having to think about S4 again.

Except, of course, to respond to all of you who will do me the favor of commenting.


End file.
